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Doctor Marigold
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 I am a Cheap Jack1, and my own father’s name was Willum Marigold.  It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum.  On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery?  As to looking at the argument through the medium of the Register, Willum Marigold come into the world before Registers come up much,—and went out of it too.  They wouldn’t have been greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up before him.
 
I was born on the Queen’s highway, but it was the King’s at that time.  A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude2 and compliment to him.  There you have me.  Doctor Marigold.
 
I am at present a middle-aged3 man of a broadish build, in cords, leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings4 of which is always gone behind.  Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle-strings.  You have been to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin-players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it snap.  That’s as exactly similar to my waistcoat as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another.
 
I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore loose and easy.  Sitting down is my favourite posture5.  If I have a taste in point of personal jewelry6, it is mother-of-pearl buttons.  There you have me again, as large as life.
 
The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you’ll guess that my father was a Cheap Jack before me.  You are right.  He was.  It was a pretty tray.  It represented a large lady going along a serpentining7 up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little church.  Two swans had likewise come astray with the same intentions.  When I call her a large lady, I don’t mean in point of breadth, for there she fell below my views, but she more than made it up in heighth; her heighth and slimness was—in short THE heighth of both.
 
I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or more likely screeching8 one) of the doctor’s standing9 it up on a table against the wall in his consulting-room.  Whenever my own father and mother were in that part of the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at that time, though you wouldn’t know an old hearth-broom from it now till you come to the handle, and found it wasn’t me) in at the doctor’s door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, “Aha, my brother practitioner10!  Come in, little M.D.  How are your inclinations11 as to sixpence?”
 
You can’t go on for ever, you’ll find, nor yet could my father nor yet my mother.  If you don’t go off as a whole when you are about due, you’re liable to go off in part, and two to one your head’s the part.  Gradually my father went off his, and my mother went off hers.  It was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where I boarded them.  The old couple, though retired12, got to be wholly and solely13 devoted14 to the Cheap Jack business, and were always selling the family off.  Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my father began rattling15 the plates and dishes, as we do in our line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the trick of it, and mostly let ’em drop and broke ’em.  As the old lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one by one to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way she handed him every item of the family’s property, and they disposed of it in their own imaginations from morning to night.  At last the old gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days and nights: “Now here, my jolly companions every one,—which the Nightingale club in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears16, Where the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, But for want of taste, voices and ears,—now, here, my jolly companions, every one, is a working model of a used-up old Cheap Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every bone: so like life that it would be just as good if it wasn’t better, just as bad if it wasn’t worse, and just as new if it wasn’t worn out.  Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who has drunk more gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his time than would blow the lid off a washerwoman’s copper17, and carry it as many thousands of miles higher than the moon as naught18 nix naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over.  Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot?  Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence.  Twopence?  Who said twopence?  The gentleman in the scarecrow’s hat?  I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow’s hat.  I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit.  Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you.  Come!  I’ll throw you in a working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so long ago that upon my word and honour it took place in Noah’s Ark, before the Unicorn19 could get in to forbid the banns by blowing a tune20 upon his horn.  There now!  Come!  What do you say for both?  I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you.  I don’t bear you malice21 for being so backward.  Here!  If you make me a bid that’ll only reflect a little credit on your town, I’ll throw you in a warming-pan for nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork for life.  Now come; what do you say after that splendid offer?  Say two pound, say thirty shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and six.  You don’t say even two and six?  You say two and three?  No.  You shan’t have the lot for two and three.  I’d sooner give it to you, if you was good-looking enough.  Here!  Missis!  Chuck the old man and woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive ’em away and bury ’em!”  Such were the last words of Willum Marigold, my own father, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife, my own mother, on one and the same day, as I ought to know, having followed as mourner.
 
My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work, as his dying observations went to prove.  But I top him.  I don’t say it because it’s myself, but because it has been universally acknowledged by all that has had the means of comparison.  I have worked at it.  I have measured myself against other public speakers,—Members of Parliament, Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel learned in the law,—and where I have found ’em good, I have took a bit of imagination from ’em, and where I have found ’em bad, I have let ’em alone.  Now I’ll tell you what.  I mean to go down into my grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in Great Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used.  Why ain’t we a profession?  Why ain’t we endowed with privileges?  Why are we forced to take out a hawker’s license22, when no such thing is expected of the political hawkers?  Where’s the difference betwixt us?  Except that we are Cheap Jacks23 and they are Dear Jacks, I don’t see any difference but what’s in our favour.
 
For look here!  Say it’s election time.  I am on the footboard of my cart in the market-place, on a Saturday night.  I put up a general miscellaneous lot.  I say: “Now here, my free and independent woters, I’m a going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding.  Now I’ll show you what I am a going to do with you.  Here’s a pair of razors that’ll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians24; here’s a flat-iron worth its weight in gold; here’s a frying-pan artificially flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you’ve only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there you are replete25 with animal food; here’s a genuine chronometer26 watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and family, and save up your knocker for the postman; and here’s half-a-dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals27 with to charm baby when it’s fractious.  Stop!  I’ll throw in another article, and I’ll give you that, and it’s a rolling-pin; and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums once with it, they’ll come through double, in a fit of laughter equal to being tickled28.  Stop again!  I’ll throw you in another article, because I don’t like the looks of you, for you haven’t the appearance of buyers unless I lose by you, and because I’d rather lose than not take money to-night, and that’s a looking-glass in which you may see how ugly you look when you don’t bid.  What do you say now?  Come!  Do you say a pound?  Not you, for you haven’t got it.  Do you say ten shillings?  Not you, for you owe more to the tallyman.  Well then, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you.  I’ll heap ’em all on the footboard of the cart,—there they are! razors, flat watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and away for four shillings, and I’ll give you sixpence for your trouble!”  This is me, the Cheap Jack.  But on the Monday morning, in the same market-place, comes the Dear Jack on the hustings—his cart—and, what does he say?  “Now my free and independent woters, I am a going to give you such a chance” (he begins just like me) “as you never had in all your born days, and that’s the chance of sending Myself to Parliament.  Now I’ll tell you what I am a going to do for you.  Here’s the interests of this magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the civilised and uncivilised earth.  Here’s your railways carried, and your neighbours’ railways jockeyed.  Here’s all your sons in the Post-office.  Here’s Britannia smiling on you.  Here’s the eyes of Europe on you.  Here’s uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion29 of animal food, golden cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your own hearts, all in one lot, and that’s myself.  Will you take me as I stand?  You won’t?  Well, then, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you.  Come now!  I’ll throw you in anything you ask for.  There!  Church-rates, abolition30 of more malt tax, no malt tax, universal education to the highest mark, or uniwersal ignorance to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army or a dozen for every private once a month all round, Wrongs of Men or Rights of Women—only say which it shall be, take ’em or leave ’em, and I’m of your opinion altogether, and the lot’s your own on your own terms.  There!  You won’t take it yet!  Well, then, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you.  Come!  You are such free and independent woters, and I am so proud of you,—you are such a noble and enlightened constituency, and I am so ambitious of the honour and dignity of being your member, which is by far the highest level to which the wings of the human mind can soar,—that I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you.  I’ll throw you in all the public-houses in your magnificent town for nothing.  Will that content you?  It won’t?  You won’t take the lot yet?  Well, then, before I put the horse in and drive away, and make the offer to the next most magnificent town that can be discovered, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.  Take the lot, and I’ll drop two thousand pound in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can.  Not enough?  Now look here.  This is the very furthest that I’m a going to.  I’ll make it two thousand five hundred.  And still you won’t?  Here, missis!  Put the horse—no, stop half a moment, I shouldn’t like to turn my back upon you neither for a trifle, I’ll make it two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound.  There!  Take the lot on your own terms, and I’ll count out two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound on the footboard of the cart, to be dropped in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can.  What do you say?  Come now!  You won’t do better, and you may do worse.  You take it?  Hooray!  Sold again, and got the seat!”
 
These Dear Jacks soap the people shameful31, but we Cheap Jacks don’t.  We tell ’em the truth about themselves to their faces, and scorn to court ’em.  As to wenturesomeness in the way of puffing32 up the lots, the Dear Jacks beat us hollow.  It is considered in the Cheap Jack calling, that better patter can be made out of a gun than any article we put up from the cart, except a pair of spectacles.  I often hold forth33 about a gun for a quarter of an hour, and feel as if I need never leave off.  But when I tell ’em what the gun can do, and what the gun has brought down, I never go half so far as the Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in praise of their guns—their great guns that set ’em on to do it.  Besides, I’m in business for myself: I ain’t sent down into the market-place to order, as they are.  Besides, again, my guns don’t know what I say in their laudation, and their guns do, and the whole concern of ’em have reason to be sick and ashamed all round.  These are some of my arguments for declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill in Great Britain, and for turning warm when I think of the other Jacks in question setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon it.
 
I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart.  I did indeed.  She was a Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ipswich market-place right opposite the corn-chandler’s shop.  I had noticed her up at a window last Saturday that was, appreciating highly.  I had took to her, and I had said to myself, “If not already disposed of, I’ll have that lot.”  Next Saturday that come, I pitched the cart on the same pitch, and I was in very high feather indeed, keeping ’em laughing the whole of the time, and getting off the goods briskly.  At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small lot wrapped in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the window where she was).  “Now here, my blooming English maidens34, is an article, the last article of the present evening’s sale, which I offer to only you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I won’t take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive.  Now what is it?  Why, I’ll tell you what it is.  It’s made of fine gold, and it’s not broke, though there’s a hole in the middle of it, and it’s stronger than any fetter35 that ever was forged, though it’s smaller than any finger in my set of ten.  Why ten?  Because, when my parents made over my property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve table-cloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons36, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and could never since be matched.  Now what else is it?  Come, I’ll tell you.  It’s a hoop37 of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle Street, London city; I wouldn’t tell you so if I hadn’t the paper to show, or you mightn’t believe it even of me.  Now what else is it?  It’s a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold and all in one.  Now what else is it?  It’s a wedding-ring.  Now I’ll tell you what I’m a going to do with it.  I’m not a going to offer this lot for money; but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that laughs, and I’ll pay her a visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after nine o’clock as the chimes go, and I’ll take her out for a walk to put up the banns.”  She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her.  When I called in the morning, she says, “O dear!  It’s never you, and you never mean it?”  “It’s ever me,” says I, “and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it.”  So we got married, after being put up three times—which, by the bye, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the Cheap Jack customs pervade38 society.
 
She wasn’t a bad wife, but she had a temper.  If she could have parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn’t have swopped her away in exchange for any other woman in England.  Not that I ever did swop her away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year.  Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I’ll let you into a secret, though you won’t believe it.  Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would try the worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the best of you.  You are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see.  There’s thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the Divorce Court in a cart.  Whether the jolting39 makes it worse, I don’t undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to you.  Wiolence in a cart is so wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is so aggrawating.
 
We might have had such a pleasant life!  A roomy cart, with the large goods hung outside, and the bed slung40 underneath41 it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse.  What more do you want?  You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew42, and you wouldn’t call the Emperor of France your father.  But have a temper in the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you then?  Put a name to your feelings.
 
My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did.  Before she broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt.  How he knew it, was a mystery to me; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt.  At such times I wished I was him.
 
The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love children with all my heart.  When she was in her furies she beat the child.  This got to be so shocking, as the child got to be four or five year old, that I have many a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse’s head, sobbing43 and crying worse than ever little Sophy did.  For how could I prevent it?  Such a thing is not to be tried with such a temper—in a cart—without coming to a fight.  It’s in the natural size and formation of a cart to bring it to a fight.  And then the poor child got worse terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her mother made complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word went round, “Here’s a wretch44 of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife.”
 
Little Sophy was such a brave child!  She grew to be quite devoted to her poor father, though he could do so little to help her.  She had a wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her.  It is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn’t go tearing mad when I used to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her mother catch her by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her.
 
Such a brave child I said she was!  Ah! with reason.
 
“Don’t you mind next time, father dear,” she would whisper to me, with her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; “if I don’t cry out, you may know I am not much hurt.  And even if I do cry out, it will only be to get mother to let go and leave off.”  What I have seen the little spirit bear—for me—without crying out!
 
Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her.  Her clothes were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired of working at ’em.  Such is the inconsistency in things.  Our being down in the marsh45 country in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause of Sophy’s taking bad low fever; but however she took it, once she got it she turned away from her mother for evermore, and nothing would persuade her to be touched by her mother’s hand.  She would shiver and say, “No, no, no,” when it was offered at, and would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter round the neck.
 
The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it, what with one thing and what with another (and not least with railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, I expect, at last), and I was run dry of money.  For which reason, one night at that period of little Sophy’s being so bad, either we must have come to a dead-lock for victuals46 and drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I did.
 
I couldn’t get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and indeed I hadn’t the heart to try, so I stepped out on the footboard with her holding round my neck.  They all set up a laugh when they see us, and one chuckle-headed Joskin (that I hated for it) made the bidding, “Tuppence for her!”
 
“Now, you country boobies,” says I, feeling as if my heart was a heavy weight at the end of a broken sashline, “I give you notice that I am a going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give you so much more than your money’s worth that you’ll only persuade yourselves to draw your Saturday night’s wages ever again arterwards by the hopes of meeting me to lay ’em out with, which you never will, and why not?  Because I’ve made my fortunes by selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent. less than I give for ’em, and I am consequently to be elevated to the House of Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and Markis Jackaloorul.  Now let’s know what you want to-night, and you shall have it.  But first of all, shall I tell you why I have got this little girl round my neck?  You don’t want to know?  Then you shall.  She belongs to the Fairies.  She’s a fortune-teller.  She can tell me all about you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you’re going to buy a lot or leave it.  Now do you want a saw?  No, she says you don’t, because you’re too clumsy to use one.  Else here’s a saw which would be a lifelong blessing47 to a handy man, at four shillings, at three and six, at three, at two and six, at two, at eighteen-pence.  But none of you shall have it at any price, on account of your well-known awkwardness, which would make it manslaughter.  The same objection applies to this set of three planes which I won’t let you have neither, so don’t bid for ’em.  Now I am a going to ask her what you do want.”  (Then I whispered, “Your head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad, my pet,” and she answered, without opening her heavy eyes, “Just a little, father.”)  “O!  This little fortune-teller says it’s a memorandum-book you want.  Then why didn’t you mention it?  Here it is.  Look at it.  Two hundred superfine hot-pressed wire-wove pages—if you don’t believe me, count ’em—ready ruled for your expenses, an everlastingly48 pointed49 pencil to put ’em down with, a double-bladed penknife to scratch ’em out with, a book of printed tables to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to sit down upon while you give your mind to it!  Stop!  And an umbrella to keep the moon off when you give your mind to it on a pitch-dark night.  Now I won’t ask you how much for the lot, but how little?  How little are you thinking of?  Don’t be ashamed to mention it, because my fortune-teller knows already.”  (Then making believe to whisper, I kissed her,—and she kissed me.)  “Why, she says you are thinking of as little as three and threepence!  I couldn’t have believed it, even of you, unless she told me.  Three and threepence!  And a set of printed tables in the lot that’ll calculate your income up to forty thousand a year!  With an income of forty thousand a year, you grudge50 three and sixpence.  Well then, I’ll tell you my opinion.  I so despise the threepence, that I’d sooner take three shillings.  There.  For three shillings, three shillings, three shillings!  Gone.  Hand ’em over to the lucky man.”
 
As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and grinned at everybody, while I touched little Sophy’s face and asked her if she felt faint, or giddy.  “Not very, father.  It will soon be over.”  Then turning from the pretty patient eyes, which were opened now, and seeing nothing but grins across my lighted grease-pot, I went on again in my Cheap Jack style.  “Where’s the butcher?”  (My sorrowful eye had just caught sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd.)  “She says the good luck is the butcher’s.  Where is he?”  Everybody handed on the blushing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher felt himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket, and take the lot.  The party so picked out, in general, does feel obliged to take the lot—good four times out of six.  Then we had another lot, the counterpart of that one, and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed.  Then we had the spectacles.  It ain’t a special profitable lot, but I put ’em on, and I see what the Chancellor51 of the Exchequer52 is going to take off the taxes, and I see what the sweetheart of the young woman in the shawl is doing at home, and I see what the Bishops53 has got for dinner, and a deal more that seldom fails to fetch ’em ’up in their spirits; and the better their spirits, the better their bids.  Then we had the ladies’ lot—the teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen spoons, and caudle-cup—and all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look or two and say a word or two to my poor child.  It was while the second ladies’ lot was holding ’em enchained that I felt her lift herself a little on my shoulder, to look across the dark street.  “What troubles you, darling?”  “Nothing troubles me, father.  I am not at all troubled.  But don’t I see a pretty churchyard over there?”  “Yes, my dear.”  “Kiss me twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass so soft and green.”  I staggered back into the cart with her head dropped on my shoulder, and I says to her mother, “Quick.  Shut the door!  Don’t let those laughing people see!”  “What’s the matter?” she cries.  “O woman, woman,” I tells her, “you’ll never catch my little Sophy by her hair again, for she has flown away from you!”
 
Maybe those were harder words than I meant ’em; but from that time forth my wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or walk beside it, hours at a stretch, with her arms crossed, and her eyes looking on the ground.  When her furies took her (which was rather seldomer than before) they took her in a new way, and she banged herself about to that extent that I was forced to hold her.  She got none the better for a little drink now and then, and through some years I used to wonder, as I plodded54 along at the old horse’s head, whether there was many carts upon the road that held so much dreariness55 as mine, for all my being looked up to as the King of the Cheap Jacks.  So sad our lives went on till one summer evening, when, as we were coming into Exeter, out of the farther West of England, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel manner, who screamed, “Don’t beat me!  O mother, mother, mother!”  Then my wife stopped her ears, and ran away like a wild thing, and next day she was found in the river.
 
Me and my dog were all the company left in the cart now; and the dog learned to give a short bark when they wouldn’t bid, and to give another and a nod of his head when I asked him, “Who said half a crown?  Are you the gentleman, sir, that offered half a crown?”  He attained56 to an immense height of popularity, and I shall always believe taught himself entirely57 out of his own head to growl58 at any person in the crowd that bid as low as sixpence.  But he got to be well on in years, and one night when I was conwulsing York with the spectacles, he took a conwulsion on his own account upon the very footboard by me, and it finished him.
 
Being naturally of a tender turn, I had dreadful lonely feelings on me arter this.  I conquered ’em at selling times, having a reputation to keep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me down in private, and rolled upon me.  That’s often the way with us public characters.  See us on the footboard, and you’d give pretty well anything you possess to be us.  See us off the footboard, and you’d add a trifle to be off your bargain.  It was under those circumstances that I come acquainted with a giant.  I might have been too high to fall into conversation with him, had it not been for my lonely feelings.  For the general rule is, going round the country, to draw the line at dressing59 up.  When a man can’t trust his getting a living to his undisguised abilities, you consider him below your sort.  And this giant when on view figured as a Roman.
 
He was a languid young man, which I attribute to the distance betwixt his extremities60.  He had a little head and less in it, he had weak eyes and weak knees, and altogether you couldn’t look at him without feeling that there was greatly too much of him both for his joints61 and his mind.  But he was an amiable62 though timid young man (his mother let him out, and spent the money), and we come acquainted when he was walking to ease the horse betwixt two fairs.  He was called Rinaldo di Velasco, his name being Pickleson.
 
This giant, otherwise Pickleson, mentioned to me under the seal of confidence that, beyond his being a burden to himself, his life was made a burden to him by the cruelty of his master towards a step-daughter who was deaf and dumb.  Her mother was dead, and she had no living soul to take her part, and was used most hard.  She travelled with his master’s caravan63 only because there was nowhere to leave her, and this giant, otherwise Pickleson, did go so far as to believe that his master often tried to lose her.  He was such a very languid young man, that I don’t know how long it didn’t take him to get this story out, but it passed through his defective64 circulation to his top extremity65 in course of time.
 
When I heard this account from the giant, otherwise Pickleson, and likewise that the poor girl had beautiful long dark hair, and was often pulled down by it and beaten, I couldn’t see the giant through what stood in my eyes.  Having wiped ’em, I give him sixpence (for he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it out in two three-penn’orths of gin-and-water, which so brisked him up, that he sang the Favourite Comic of Shivery Shakey, ain’t it cold?—a popular effect which his master had tried every other means to get out of him as a Roman wholly in vain.
 
His master’s name was Mim, a wery hoarse66 man, and I knew him to speak to.  I went to that Fair as a mere67 civilian68, leaving the cart outside the town, and I looked about the back of the Vans while the performing was going on, and at last, sitting dozing69 against a muddy cart-wheel, I come upon the poor girl who was deaf and dumb.  At the first look I might almost have judged that she had escaped from the Wild Beast Show; but at the second I thought better of her, and thought that if she was more cared for and more kindly70 used she would be like my child.  She was just the same age that my own daughter would have been, if her pretty head had not fell down upon my shoulder that unfortunate night.
 
To cut it short, I spoke71 confidential72 to Mim while he was beating the gong outside betwixt two lots of Pickleson’s publics, and I put it to him, “She lies heavy on your own hands; what’ll you take for her?”  Mim was a most ferocious73 swearer.  Suppressing that part of his reply which was much the longest part, his reply was, “A pair of braces74.”  “Now I’ll tell you,” says I, “what I’m a going to do with you.  I’m a going to fetch you half-a-dozen pair of the primest braces in the cart, and then to take her away with me.”  Says Mim (again ferocious), “I’ll believe it when I’ve got the goods, and no sooner.”  I made all the haste I could, lest he should think twice of it, and the bargain was completed, which Pickleson he was thereby75 so relieved in his mind that he come out at his little back door, longways like a serpent, and give us Shivery Shakey in a whisper among the wheels at parting.
 
It was happy days for both of us when Sophy and me began to travel in the cart.  I at once give her the name of Sophy, to put her ever towards me in the attitude of my own daughter.  We soon made out to begin to understand one another, through the goodness of the Heavens, when she knowed that I meant true and kind by her.  In a very little time she was wonderful fond of me.  You have no idea what it is to have anybody wonderful fond of you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that I have mentioned as having once got the better of me.
 
You’d have laughed—or the rewerse—it’s according to your disposition—if you could have seen me trying to teach Sophy.  At first I was helped—you’d never guess by what—milestones.  I got some large alphabets in a box, all the letters separate on bits of bone, and saying we was going to WINDSOR, I give her those letters in that order, and then at every milestone76 I showed her those same letters in that same order again, and pointed towards the abode77 of royalty78.  Another time I give her CART, and then chalked the same upon the cart.  Another time I give her DOCTOR MARIGOLD, and hung a corresponding inscription79 outside my waistcoat.  People that met us might stare a bit and laugh, but what did I care, if she caught the idea?  She caught it after long patience and trouble, and then we did begin to get on swimmingly, I believe you!  At first she was a little given to consider me the cart, and the cart the abode of royalty, but that soon wore off.
 
We had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number.  Sometimes she would sit looking at me and considering hard how to communicate with me about something fresh,—how to ask me what she wanted explained,—and then she was (or I thought she was; what does it signify?) so like my child with those years added to her, that I half-believed it was herself, trying to tell me where she had been to up in the skies, and what she had seen since that unhappy night when she flied away.  She had a pretty face, and now that there was no one to drag at her bright dark hair, and it was all in order, there was a something touching80 in her looks that made the cart most peaceful and most quiet, though not at all melancholy81.  [N.B.  In the Cheap Jack patter, we generally sound it lemonjolly, and it gets a laugh.]
 
The way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly surprising.  When I sold of a night, she would sit in the cart unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes when I looked in, and would hand me straight the precise article or articles I wanted.  And then she would clap her hands, and laugh for joy.  And as for me, seeing her so bright, and remembering what she was when I first lighted on her, starved and beaten and ragged82, leaning asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give me such heart that I gained a greater heighth of reputation than ever, and I put Pickleson down (by the name of Mim’s Travelling Giant otherwise Pickleson) for a fypunnote in my will.
 
This happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old.  By which time I began to feel not satisfied that I had done my whole duty by her, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching than I could give her.  It drew a many tears on both sides when I commenced explaining my views to her; but what’s right is right, and you can’t neither by tears nor laughter do away with its character.
 
So I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day to the Deaf and Dumb Establishment in London, and when the gentleman come to speak to us, I says to him: “Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you, sir.  I am nothing but a Cheap Jack, but of late years I have laid by for a rainy day notwithstanding.  This is my only daughter (adopted), and you can’t produce a deafer nor a dumber.  Teach her the most that can be taught her in the shortest separation that can be named,—state the figure for it,—and I am game to put the money down.  I won’t bate83 you a single farthing, sir, but I’ll put down the money here and now, and I’ll thankfully throw you in a pound to take it.  There!”  The gentleman smiled, and then, “Well, well,” says he, “I must first know what she has learned already.  How do you communicate with her?”  Then I showed him, and she wrote in printed writing many names of things and so forth; and we held some sprightly85 conversation, Sophy and me, about a little story in a book which the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read.  “This is most extraordinary,” says the gentleman; “is it possible that you have been her only teacher?”  “I have been her only teacher, sir,” I says, “besides herself.”  “Then,” says the gentleman, and more acceptable words was never spoke to me, “you’re a clever fellow, and a good fellow.”  This he makes known to Sophy, who kisses his hands, claps her own, and laughs and cries upon it.
 
We saw the gentleman four times in all, and when he took down my name and asked how in the world it ever chanced to be Doctor, it come out that he was own nephew by the sister’s side, if you’ll believe me, to the very Doctor that I was called after.  This made our footing still easier, and he says to me:
 
“Now, Marigold, tell me what more do you want your adopted daughter to know?”
 
“I want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as can be, considering her deprivations86, and therefore to be able to read whatever is wrote with perfect ease and pleasure.”
 
“My good fellow,” urges the gentleman, opening his eyes wide, “why I can’t do that myself!”
 
I took his joke, and gave him a laugh (knowing by experience how flat you fall without it), and I mended my words accordingly.
 
“What do you mean to do with her afterwards?” asks the gentleman, with a sort of a doubtful eye.  “To take her about the country?”
 
“In the cart, sir, but only in the cart.  She will live a private life, you understand, in the cart.  I should never think of bringing her infirmities before the public.  I wouldn’t make a show of her for any money.”
 
The gentleman nodded, and seemed to approve.
 
“Well,” says he, “can you part with her for two years?”
 
“To do her that good,—yes, sir.”
 
“There’s another question,” says the gentleman, looking towards her,—“can she part with you for two years?”
 
I don’t know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the other was hard enough to me), but it was harder to get over.  However, she was pacified87 to it at last, and the separation betwixt us was settled.  How it cut up both of us when it took place, and when I left her at the door in the dark of an evening, I don’t tell.  But I know this; remembering that night, I shall never pass that same establishment without a heartache and a swelling88 in the throat; and I couldn’t put you up the best of lots in sight of it with my usual spirit,—no, not even the gun, nor the pair of spectacles,—for five hundred pound reward from the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and throw in the honour of putting my legs under his mahogany arterwards.
 
Still, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old loneliness, because there was a term put to it, however long to look forward to; and because I could think, when I was anyways down, that she belonged to me and I belonged to her.  Always planning for her coming back, I bought in a few months’ time another cart, and what do you think I planned to do with it?  I’ll tell you.  I planned to fit it up with shelves and books for her reading, and to have a seat in it where I could sit and see her read, and think that I had been her first teacher.  Not hurrying over the job, I had the fittings knocked together in contriving89 ways under my own inspection90, and here was her bed in a berth91 with curtains, and there was her reading-table, and here was her writing-desk, and elsewhere was her books in rows upon rows, picters and no picters, bindings and no bindings, gilt-edged and plain, just as I could pick ’em up for her in lots up and down the country, North and South and West and East, Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone astray, Over the hills and far away.  And when I had got together pretty well as many books as the cart would neatly92 hold, a new scheme come into my head, which, as it turned out, kept my time and attention a good deal employed, and helped me over the two years’ stile.
 
Without being of an awaricious temper, I like to be the owner of things.  I shouldn’t wish, for instance, to go partners with yourself in the Cheap Jack cart.  It’s not that I mistrust you, but that I’d rather know it was mine.  Similarly, very likely you’d rather know it was yours.  Well!  A kind of a jealousy93 began to creep into my mind when I reflected that all those books would have been read by other people long before they was read by her.  It seemed to take away from her being the owner of ’em like.  In this way, the question got into my head: Couldn’t I have a book new-made express for her, which she should be the first to read?
 
It pleased me, that thought did; and as I never was a man to let a thought sleep (you must wake up all the whole family of thoughts you’ve got and burn their nightcaps, or you won’t do in the Cheap Jack line), I set to work at it.  Considering that I was in the habit of changing so much about the country, and that I should have to find out a literary character here to make a deal with, and another literary character there to make a deal with, as opportunities presented, I hit on the plan that this same book should be a general miscellaneous lot,—like the razors, flat-iron, chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass,—and shouldn’t be offered as a single indiwidual article, like the spectacles or the gun.  When I had come to that conclusion, I come to another, which shall likewise be yours.
 
Often had I regretted that she never had heard me on the footboard, and that she never could hear me.  It ain’t that I am vain, but that you don’t like to put your own light under a bushel.  What’s the worth of your reputation, if you can’t convey the reason for it to the person you most wish to value it?  Now I’ll put it to you.  Is it worth sixpence, fippence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, a penny, a halfpenny, a farthing?  No, it ain’t.  Not worth a farthing.  Very well, then.  My conclusion was that I would begin her book with some account of myself.  So that, through reading a specimen94 or two of me on the footboard, she might form an idea of my merits there.  I was aware that I couldn’t do myself justice.  A man can’t write his eye (at least I don’t know how to), nor yet can a man write his voice, nor the rate of his talk, nor the quickness of his action, nor his general spicy95 way.  But he can write his turns of speech, when he is a public speaker,—and indeed I have heard that he very often does, before he speaks ’em.
 
Well!  Having formed that resolution, then come the question of a name.  How did I hammer that hot iron into shape?  This way.  The most difficult explanation I had ever had with her was, how I come to be called Doctor, and yet was no Doctor.  After all, I felt that I had failed of getting it correctly into her mind, with my utmost pains.  But trusting to her improvement in the two years, I thought that I might trust to her understanding it when she should come to read it as put down by my own hand.  Then I thought I would try a joke with her and watch how it took, by which of itself I might fully84 judge of her understanding it.  We had first discovered the mistake we had dropped into, through her having asked me to prescribe for her when she had supposed me to be a Doctor in a medical point of view; so thinks I, “Now, if I give this book the name of my Prescriptions96, and if she catches the idea that my only Prescriptions are for her amusement and interest,—to make her laugh in a pleasant way, or to make her cry in a pleasant way,—it will be a delightful98 proof to both of us that we have got over our difficulty.”  It fell out to absolute perfection.  For when she saw the book, as I had it got up,—the printed and pressed book,—lying on her desk in her cart, and saw the title, DOCTOR MARIGOLD’S PRESCRIPTIONS, she looked at me for a moment with astonishment99, then fluttered the leaves, then broke out a laughing in the charmingest way, then felt her pulse and shook her head, then turned the pages pretending to read them most attentive100, then kissed the book to me, and put it to her bosom101 with both her hands.  I never was better pleased in all my life!
 
But let me not anticipate.  (I take that expression out of a lot of romances I bought for her.  I never opened a single one of ’em—and I have opened many—but I found the romancer saying “let me not anticipate.”  Which being so, I wonder why he did anticipate, or who asked him to it.)  Let me not, I say, anticipate.  This same book took up all my spare time.  It was no play to get the other articles together in the general miscellaneous lot, but when it come to my own article!  There!  I couldn’t have believed the blotting102, nor yet the buckling103 to at it, nor the patience over it.  Which again is like the footboard.  The public have no idea.
 
At last it was done, and the two years’ time was gone after all the other time before it, and where it’s all gone to, who knows?  The new cart was finished,—yellow outside, relieved with wermilion and brass104 fittings,—the old horse was put in it, a new ’un and a boy being laid on for the Cheap Jack cart,—and I cleaned myself up to go and fetch her.  Bright cold weather it was, cart-chimneys smoking, carts pitched private on a piece of waste ground over at Wandsworth, where you may see ’em from the Sou’western Railway when not upon the road.  (Look out of the right-hand window going down.)
 
“Marigold,” says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty105, “I am very glad to see you.”
 
“Yet I have my doubts, sir,” says I, “if you can be half as glad to see me as I am to see you.”
 
“The time has appeared so long,—has it, Marigold?”
 
“I won’t say that, sir, considering its real length; but—”
 
“What a start, my good fellow!”
 
Ah!  I should think it was!  Grown such a woman, so pretty, so intelligent, so expressive106!  I knew then that she must be really like my child, or I could never have known her, standing quiet by the door.
 
“You are affected,” says the gentleman in a kindly manner.
 
“I feel, sir,” says I, “that I am but a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat.”
 
“I feel,” says the gentleman, “that it was you who raised her from misery107 and degradation108, and brought her into communication with her kind.  But why do we converse109 alone together, when we can converse so well with her?  Address her in your own way.”
 
“I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir,” says I, “and she is such a graceful110 woman, and she stands so quiet at the door!”
 
“Try if she moves at the old sign,” says the gentleman.
 
They had got it up together o’ purpose to please me!  For when I give her the old sign, she rushed to my feet, and dropped upon her knees, holding up her hands to me with pouring tears of love and joy; and when I took her hands and lifted her, she clasped me round the neck, and lay there; and I don’t know what a fool I didn’t make of myself, until we all three settled down into talking without sound, as if there was a something soft and pleasant spread over the whole world for us.
 
* * * * *
 
[A portion is here omitted from the text, having reference to the sketches111 contributed by other writers; but the reader will be pleased to have what follows retained in a note:
 
“Now I’ll tell you what I am a-going to do with you.  I am a-going to offer you the general miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read by anybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first reading of it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six-and-ninety columns, Whiting’s own work, Beaufort House to wit, thrown off by the steam-ingine, best of paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen112 come home from the clear-starcher’s, and so exquisitely113 stitched that, regarded as a piece of needlework alone, it’s better than the sampler of a seamstress undergoing a Competitive examination for Starvation before the Civil Service Commissioners—and I offer the lot for what?  For eight pound?  Not so much.  For six pound?  Less.  For four pound.  Why, I hardly expect you to believe me, but that’s the sum.  Four pound!  The stitching alone cost half as much again.  Here’s forty-eight original pages, ninety-six original columns, for four pound.  You want more for the money?  Take it.  Three whole pages of advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in for nothing.  Read ’em and believe ’em.  More?  My best of wishes for your merry Christmases and your happy New Years, your long lives and your true prosperities.  Worth twenty pound good if they are delivered as I send them.  Remember!  Here’s a final prescription97 added, “To be taken for life,” which will tell you how the cart broke down, and where the journey ended.  You think Four Pound too much?  And still you think so?  Come!  I’ll tell you what then.  Say Four Pence, and keep the secret.”]
 
* * * * *
 
So every item of my plan was crowned with success.  Our reunited life was more than all that we had looked forward to.  Content and joy went with us as the wheels of the two carts went round, and the same stopped with us when the two carts stopped.  I was as pleased and as proud as a Pug-Dog with his muzzle114 black-leaded for a evening party, and his tail extra curled by machinery115.
 
But I had left something out of my calculations.  Now, what had I left out?  To help you to guess I’ll say, a figure.  Come.  Make a guess and guess right.  Nought116?  No.  Nine?  No.  Eight?  No.  Seven?  No.  Six?  No.  Five?  No.  Four?  No.  Three?  No.  Two?  No.  One?  No.  Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you.  I’ll say it’s another sort of figure altogether.  There.  Why then, says you, it’s a mortal figure.  No, nor yet a mortal figure.  By such means you got yourself penned into a corner, and you can’t help guessing a immortal117 figure.  That’s about it.  Why didn’t you say so sooner?
 
Yes.  It was a immortal figure that I had altogether left out of my Calculations.  Neither man’s, nor woman’s, but a child’s.  Girl’s or boy’s?  Boy’s.  “I, says the sparrow with my bow and arrow.”  Now you have got it.
 
We were down at Lancaster, and I had done two nights more than fair average business (though I cannot in honour recommend them as a quick audience) in the open square there, near the end of the street where Mr. Sly’s King’s Arms and Royal Hotel stands.  Mim’s travelling giant, otherwise Pickleson, happened at the self-same time to be trying it on in the town.  The genteel lay was adopted with him.  No hint of a van.  Green baize alcove118 leading up to Pickleson in a Auction119 Room.  Printed poster, “Free list suspended, with the exception of that proud boast of an enlightened country, a free press.  Schools admitted by private arrangement.  Nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock the most fastidious.”  Mim swearing most horrible and terrific, in a pink calico pay-place, at the slackness of the public.  Serious handbill in the shops, importing that it was all but impossible to come to a right understanding of the history of David without seeing Pickleson.
 
I went to the Auction Room in question, and I found it entirely empty of everything but echoes and mouldiness, with the single exception of Pickleson on a piece of red drugget.  This suited my purpose, as I wanted a private and confidential word with him, which was: “Pickleson.  Owing much happiness to you, I put you in my will for a fypunnote; but, to save trouble, here’s fourpunten down, which may equally suit your views, and let us so conclude the transaction.”  Pickleson, who up to that remark had had the dejected appearance of a long Roman rushlight that couldn’t anyhow get lighted, brightened up at his top extremity, and made his acknowledgments in a way which (for him) was parliamentary eloquence120.  He likewise did add, that, having ceased to draw as a Roman, Mim had made proposals for his going in as a conwerted Indian Giant worked upon by The Dairyman’s Daughter.  This, Pickleson, having no acquaintance with the tract121 named after that young woman, and not being willing to couple gag with his serious views, had declined to do, thereby leading to words and the total stoppage of the unfortunate young man’s beer.  All of which, during the whole of the interview, was confirmed by the ferocious growling122 of Mim down below in the pay-place, which shook the giant like a leaf.
 
But what was to the present point in the remarks of the travelling giant, otherwise Pickleson, was this: “Doctor Marigold,”—I give his words without a hope of conweying their feebleness,—“who is the strange young man that hangs about your carts?”—“The strange young man?”  I gives him back, thinking that he meant her, and his languid circulation had dropped a syllable123.  “Doctor,” he returns, with a pathos124 calculated to draw a tear from even a manly125 eye, “I am weak, but not so weak yet as that I don’t know my words.  I repeat them, Doctor.  The strange young man.”  It then appeared that Pickleson, being forced to stretch his legs (not that they wanted it) only at times when he couldn’t be seen for nothing, to wit in the dead of the night and towards daybreak, had twice seen hanging about my carts, in that same town of Lancaster where I had been only two nights, this same unknown young man.
 
It put me rather out of sorts.  What it meant as to particulars I no more foreboded then than you forebode now, but it put me rather out of sorts.  Howsoever, I made light of it to Pickleson, and I took leave of Pickleson, advising him to spend his legacy126 in getting up his stamina127, and to continue to stand by his religion.  Towards morning I kept a look out for the strange young man, and—what was more—I saw the strange young man.  He was well dressed and well looking.  He loitered very nigh my carts, watching them like as if he was taking care of them, and soon after daybreak turned and went away.  I sent a hail after him, but he never started or looked round, or took the smallest notice.
 
We left Lancaster within an hour or two, on our way towards Carlisle.  Next morning, at daybreak, I looked out again for the strange young man.  I did not see him.  But next morning I looked out again, and there he was once more.  I sent another hail after him, but as before he gave not the slightest sign of being anyways disturbed.  This put a thought into my head.  Acting128 on it I watched him in different manners and at different times not necessary to enter into, till I found that this strange young man was deaf and dumb.
 
The discovery turned me over, because I knew that a part of that establishment where she had been was allotted129 to young men (some of them well off), and I thought to myself, “If she favours him, where am I? and where is all that I have worked and planned for?”  Hoping—I must confess to the selfishness—that she might not favour him, I set myself to find out.  At last I was by accident present at a meeting between them in the open air, looking on leaning behind a fir-tree without their knowing of it.  It was a moving meeting for all the three parties concerned.  I knew every syllable that passed between them as well as they did.  I listened with my eyes, which had come to be as quick and true with deaf and dumb conversation as my ears with the talk of people that can speak.  He was a-going out to China as clerk in a merchant’s house, which his father had been before him.  He was in circumstances to keep a wife, and he wanted her to marry him and go along with him.  She persisted, no.  He asked if she didn’t love him.  Yes, she loved him dearly, dearly; but she could never disappoint her beloved, good, noble, generous, and I-don’t-know-what-all father (meaning me, the Cheap Jack in the sleeved waistcoat) and she would stay with him, Heaven bless him! though it was to break her heart.  Then she cried most bitterly, and that made up my mind.
 
While my mind had been in an unsettled state about her favouring this young man, I had felt that unreasonable130 towards Pickleson, that it was well for him he had got his legacy down.  For I often thought, “If it hadn’t been for this same weak-minded giant, I might never have come to trouble my head and wex my soul about the young man.”  But, once that I knew she loved him,—once that I had seen her weep for him,—it was a different thing.  I made it right in my mind with Pickleson on the spot, and I shook myself together to do what was right by all.
 
She had left the young man by that time (for it took a few minutes to get me thoroughly131 well shook together), and the young man was leaning against another of the fir-trees,—of which there was a cluster,—with his face upon his arm.  I touched him on the back.  Looking up and seeing me, he says, in our deaf-and-dumb talk, “Do not be angry.”
 
“I am not angry, good boy.  I am your friend.  Come with me.”
 
I left him at the foot of the steps of the Library Cart, and I went up alone.  She was drying her eyes.
 
“You have been crying, my dear.”
 
“Yes, father.”
 
“Why?”
 
“A headache.”
 
“Not a heartache?”
 
“I said a headache, father.”
 
“Doctor Marigold must prescribe for that headache.”
 
She took up the book of my Prescriptions, and held it up with a forced smile; but seeing me keep still and look earnest, she softly laid it down again, and her eyes were very attentive.
 
“The Prescription is not there, Sophy.”
 
“Where is it?”
 
“Here, my dear.”
 
I brought her young husband in, and I put her hand in his, and my only farther words to both of them were these: “Doctor Marigold’s last Prescription.  To be taken for life.”  After which I bolted.
 
When the wedding come off, I mounted a coat (blue, and bright buttons), for the first and last time in all my days, and I give Sophy away with my own hand.  There were only us three and the gentleman who had had charge of her for those two years.  I give the wedding dinner of four in the Library Cart.  Pigeon-pie, a leg of pickled pork, a pair of fowls132, and suitable garden stuff.  The best of drinks.  I give them a speech, and the gentleman give us a speech, and all our jokes told, and the whole went off like a sky-rocket.  In the course of the entertainment I explained to Sophy that I should keep the Library Cart as my living-cart when not upon the road, and that I should keep all her books for her just as they stood, till she come back to claim them.  So she went to China with her young husband, and it was a parting sorrowful and heavy, and I got the boy I had another service; and so as of old, when my child and wife were gone, I went plodding133 along alone, with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse’s head.
 
Sophy wrote me many letters, and I wrote her many letters.  About the end of the first year she sent me one in an unsteady hand: “Dearest father, not a week ago I had a darling little daughter, but I am so well that they let me write these words to you.  Dearest and best father, I hope my child may not be deaf and dumb, but I do not yet know.”  When I wrote back, I hinted the question; but as Sophy never answered that question, I felt it to be a sad one, and I never repeated it.  For a long time our letters were regular, but then they got irregular, through Sophy’s husband being moved to another station, and through my being always on the move.  But we were in one another’s thoughts, I was equally sure, letters or no letters.
 
Five years, odd months, had gone since Sophy went away.  I was still the King of the Cheap Jacks, and at a greater height of popularity than ever.  I had had a first-rate autumn of it, and on the twenty-third of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, I found myself at Uxbridge, Middlesex, clean sold out.  So I jogged up to London with the old horse, light and easy, to have my Christmas-eve and Christmas-day alone by the fire in the Library Cart, and then to buy a regular new stock of goods all round, to sell ’em again and get the money.
 
I am a neat hand at cookery, and I’ll tell you what I knocked up for my Christmas-eve dinner in the Library Cart.  I knocked up a beefsteak-pudding for one, with two kidneys, a dozen oysters134, and a couple of mushrooms thrown in.  It’s a pudding to put a man in good humour with everything, except the two bottom buttons of his waistcoat.  Having relished135 that pudding and cleared away, I turned the lamp low, and sat down by the light of the fire, watching it as it shone upon the backs of Sophy’s books.
 
Sophy’s books so brought Sophy’s self, that I saw her touching face quite plainly, before I dropped off dozing by the fire.  This may be a reason why Sophy, with her deaf-and-dumb child in her arms, seemed to stand silent by me all through my nap.  I was on the road, off the road, in all sorts of places, North and South and West and East, Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone astray, Over the hills and far away, and still she stood silent by me, with her silent child in her arms.  Even when I woke with a start, she seemed to vanish, as if she had stood by me in that very place only a single instant before.
 
I had started at a real sound, and the sound was on the steps of the cart.  It was the light hurried tread of a child, coming clambering up.  That tread of a child had once been so familiar to me, that for half a moment I believed I was a-going to see a little ghost.
 
But the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer handle of the door, and the handle turned, and the door opened a little way, and a real child peeped in.  A bright little comely136 girl with large dark eyes.
 
Looking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite137 of a straw hat, and a quantity of dark curls fell about her face.  Then she opened her lips, and said in a pretty voice,
 
“Grandfather!”
 
“Ah, my God!” I cries out.  “She can speak!”
 
“Yes, dear grandfather.  And I am to ask you whether there was ever any one that I remind you of?”
 
In a moment Sophy was round my neck, as well as the child, and her husband was a-wringing my hand with his face hid, and we all had to shake ourselves together before we could get over it.  And when we did begin to get over it, and I saw the pretty child a-talking, pleased and quick and eager and busy, to her mother, in the signs that I had first taught her mother, the happy and yet pitying tears fell rolling down my face.

该作者的其它作品

A Tale of Two Cities双城记
David Copperfield大卫·科波菲尔
 《匹克威克外传 Pickwick Papers
董贝父子 Dombey and Son


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 jack 53Hxp     
n.插座,千斤顶,男人;v.抬起,提醒,扛举;n.(Jake)杰克
参考例句:
  • I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
  • He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。
2 gratitude p6wyS     
adj.感激,感谢
参考例句:
  • I have expressed the depth of my gratitude to him.我向他表示了深切的谢意。
  • She could not help her tears of gratitude rolling down her face.她感激的泪珠禁不住沿着面颊流了下来。
3 middle-aged UopzSS     
adj.中年的
参考例句:
  • I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
  • The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。
4 strings nh0zBe     
n.弦
参考例句:
  • He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上,随意地拨着吉他的弦。
  • She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。
5 posture q1gzk     
n.姿势,姿态,心态,态度;v.作出某种姿势
参考例句:
  • The government adopted an uncompromising posture on the issue of independence.政府在独立这一问题上采取了毫不妥协的态度。
  • He tore off his coat and assumed a fighting posture.他脱掉上衣,摆出一副打架的架势。
6 jewelry 0auz1     
n.(jewllery)(总称)珠宝
参考例句:
  • The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
  • Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。
7 serpentining 9116ece3f850bbbc74962fe7f510706d     
v.像蛇般蜷曲的,蜿蜒的( serpentine的现在分词 )
参考例句:
8 screeching 8bf34b298a2d512e9b6787a29dc6c5f0     
v.发出尖叫声( screech的现在分词 );发出粗而刺耳的声音;高叫
参考例句:
  • Monkeys were screeching in the trees. 猴子在树上吱吱地叫着。
  • the unedifying sight of the two party leaders screeching at each other 两党党魁狺狺对吠的讨厌情景
9 standing 2hCzgo     
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的
参考例句:
  • After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
  • They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。
10 practitioner 11Rzh     
n.实践者,从事者;(医生或律师等)开业者
参考例句:
  • He is an unqualified practitioner of law.他是个无资格的律师。
  • She was a medical practitioner before she entered politics.从政前她是个开业医生。
11 inclinations 3f0608fe3c993220a0f40364147caa7b     
倾向( inclination的名词复数 ); 倾斜; 爱好; 斜坡
参考例句:
  • She has artistic inclinations. 她有艺术爱好。
  • I've no inclinations towards life as a doctor. 我的志趣不是行医。
12 retired Njhzyv     
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的
参考例句:
  • The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
  • Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。
13 solely FwGwe     
adv.仅仅,唯一地
参考例句:
  • Success should not be measured solely by educational achievement.成功与否不应只用学业成绩来衡量。
  • The town depends almost solely on the tourist trade.这座城市几乎完全靠旅游业维持。
14 devoted xu9zka     
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的
参考例句:
  • He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
  • We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
15 rattling 7b0e25ab43c3cc912945aafbb80e7dfd     
adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词
参考例句:
  • This book is a rattling good read. 这是一本非常好的读物。
  • At that same instant,a deafening explosion set the windows rattling. 正在这时,一声震耳欲聋的爆炸突然袭来,把窗玻璃震得当当地响。
16 shears Di7zh6     
n.大剪刀
参考例句:
  • These garden shears are lightweight and easy to use.这些园丁剪刀又轻又好用。
  • With a few quick snips of the shears he pruned the bush.他用大剪刀几下子就把灌木给修剪好了。
17 copper HZXyU     
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的
参考例句:
  • The students are asked to prove the purity of copper.要求学生们检验铜的纯度。
  • Copper is a good medium for the conduction of heat and electricity.铜是热和电的良导体。
18 naught wGLxx     
n.无,零 [=nought]
参考例句:
  • He sets at naught every convention of society.他轻视所有的社会习俗。
  • I hope that all your efforts won't go for naught.我希望你的努力不会毫无结果。
19 unicorn Ak7wK     
n.(传说中的)独角兽
参考例句:
  • The unicorn is an imaginary beast.独角兽是幻想出来的动物。
  • I believe unicorn was once living in the world.我相信独角兽曾经生活在这个世界。
20 tune NmnwW     
n.调子;和谐,协调;v.调音,调节,调整
参考例句:
  • He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子,并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
  • The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。
21 malice P8LzW     
n.恶意,怨恨,蓄意;[律]预谋
参考例句:
  • I detected a suggestion of malice in his remarks.我觉察出他说的话略带恶意。
  • There was a strong current of malice in many of his portraits.他的许多肖像画中都透着一股强烈的怨恨。
22 license B9TzU     
n.执照,许可证,特许;v.许可,特许
参考例句:
  • The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
  • The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。
23 jacks 2b0facb0ce94beb5f627e3c22cc18d34     
n.抓子游戏;千斤顶( jack的名词复数 );(电)插孔;[电子学]插座;放弃
参考例句:
  • Hydraulic jacks under the machine produce the movement. 是机器下面的液压千斤顶造成的移动。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The front end is equipped with hydraulic jacks used for grade adjustment. 前瑞安装有液压千斤顶用来调整坡度。 来自辞典例句
24 guardians 648b3519bd4469e1a48dff4dc4827315     
监护人( guardian的名词复数 ); 保护者,维护者
参考例句:
  • Farmers should be guardians of the countryside. 农民应是乡村的保卫者。
  • The police are guardians of law and order. 警察是法律和秩序的护卫者。
25 replete BBBzd     
adj.饱满的,塞满的;n.贮蜜蚁
参考例句:
  • He was replete with food and drink.他吃喝得饱饱的。
  • This immense space may be replete with happiness and glory.这巨大的空间可能充满了幸福和光荣。
26 chronometer CVWyh     
n.精密的计时器
参考例句:
  • Murchison followed with his eye the hand of his chronometer.莫奇生的眼睛追随着他的时计的秒针。
  • My watch is more expensive because it's a chronometer.我的手表是精密型的,所以要比你的贵。
27 cymbals uvwzND     
pl.铙钹
参考例句:
  • People shouted, while the drums and .cymbals crashed incessantly. 人声嘈杂,锣鼓不停地大响特响。 来自汉英文学 - 家(1-26) - 家(1-26)
  • The dragon dance troupe, beating drums and cymbals, entered the outer compound. 龙灯随着锣鼓声进来,停在二门外的大天井里。 来自汉英文学 - 家(1-26) - 家(1-26)
28 tickled 2db1470d48948f1aa50b3cf234843b26     
(使)发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 ); (使)愉快,逗乐
参考例句:
  • We were tickled pink to see our friends on television. 在电视中看到我们的一些朋友,我们高兴极了。
  • I tickled the baby's feet and made her laugh. 我胳肢孩子的脚,使她发笑。
29 repletion vBczc     
n.充满,吃饱
参考例句:
  • It is better to die of repletion than to endure hunger.饱死胜过挨饿。
  • A baby vomits milk from repletion.婴儿吃饱会吐奶。
30 abolition PIpyA     
n.废除,取消
参考例句:
  • They declared for the abolition of slavery.他们声明赞成废除奴隶制度。
  • The abolition of the monarchy was part of their price.废除君主制是他们的其中一部分条件。
31 shameful DzzwR     
adj.可耻的,不道德的
参考例句:
  • It is very shameful of him to show off.他向人炫耀自己,真不害臊。
  • We must expose this shameful activity to the newspapers.我们一定要向报社揭露这一无耻行径。
32 puffing b3a737211571a681caa80669a39d25d3     
v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 );喷着汽(或烟)移动;吹嘘;吹捧
参考例句:
  • He was puffing hard when he jumped on to the bus. 他跳上公共汽车时喘息不已。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • My father sat puffing contentedly on his pipe. 父亲坐着心满意足地抽着烟斗。 来自《简明英汉词典》
33 forth Hzdz2     
adv.向前;向外,往外
参考例句:
  • The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
  • He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。
34 maidens 85662561d697ae675e1f32743af22a69     
处女( maiden的名词复数 ); 少女; 未婚女子; (板球运动)未得分的一轮投球
参考例句:
  • stories of knights and fair maidens 关于骑士和美女的故事
  • Transplantation is not always successful in the matter of flowers or maidens. 花儿移栽往往并不成功,少女们换了环境也是如此。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
35 fetter Vzbyf     
n./vt.脚镣,束缚
参考例句:
  • This does not mean that we wish to fetter the trade union movement.这并不意味着我们想限制工会运动。
  • Reform will be deepened to remove the institutional obstacles that fetter the development of productive forces.继续深化改革,突破束缚生产力发展的体制性障碍。
36 teaspoons 2373c24f8a940bcba4d8d55a1e80e98c     
n.茶匙( teaspoon的名词复数 );一茶匙的量
参考例句:
  • Add two teaspoons of salt. 加两小匙盐。
  • Add 3 heaped teaspoons of sugar. 加满满的三匙糖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
37 hoop wcFx9     
n.(篮球)篮圈,篮
参考例句:
  • The child was rolling a hoop.那个孩子在滚铁环。
  • The wooden tub is fitted with the iron hoop.木盆都用铁箍箍紧。
38 pervade g35zH     
v.弥漫,遍及,充满,渗透,漫延
参考例句:
  • Science and technology have come to pervade every aspect of our lives.科学和技术已经渗透到我们生活的每一个方面。
  • The smell of sawdust and glue pervaded the factory.工厂里弥漫着锯屑和胶水的气味。
39 jolting 5p8zvh     
adj.令人震惊的
参考例句:
  • 'she should be all right from the plane's jolting by now. “飞机震荡应该过了。
  • This is perhaps the most jolting comment of all. 这恐怕是最令人震惊的评论。
40 slung slung     
抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 ); 吊挂; 遣送; 押往
参考例句:
  • He slung the bag over his shoulder. 他把包一甩,挎在肩上。
  • He stood up and slung his gun over his shoulder. 他站起来把枪往肩上一背。
41 underneath VKRz2     
adj.在...下面,在...底下;adv.在下面
参考例句:
  • Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
  • She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣,里面套着一条连衣裙。
42 stew 0GTz5     
n.炖汤,焖,烦恼;v.炖汤,焖,忧虑
参考例句:
  • The stew must be boiled up before serving.炖肉必须煮熟才能上桌。
  • There's no need to get in a stew.没有必要烦恼。
43 sobbing df75b14f92e64fc9e1d7eaf6dcfc083a     
<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的
参考例句:
  • I heard a child sobbing loudly. 我听见有个孩子在呜呜地哭。
  • Her eyes were red with recent sobbing. 她的眼睛因刚哭过而发红。
44 wretch EIPyl     
n.可怜的人,不幸的人;卑鄙的人
参考例句:
  • You are really an ungrateful wretch to complain instead of thanking him.你不但不谢他,还埋怨他,真不知好歹。
  • The dead husband is not the dishonoured wretch they fancied him.死去的丈夫不是他们所想象的不光彩的坏蛋。
45 marsh Y7Rzo     
n.沼泽,湿地
参考例句:
  • There are a lot of frogs in the marsh.沼泽里有许多青蛙。
  • I made my way slowly out of the marsh.我缓慢地走出这片沼泽地。
46 victuals reszxF     
n.食物;食品
参考例句:
  • A plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him.一盘粗劣的剩余饭食放到了他的面前。
  • There are no more victuals for the pig.猪没有吃的啦。
47 blessing UxDztJ     
n.祈神赐福;祷告;祝福,祝愿
参考例句:
  • The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
  • A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。
48 everlastingly e11726de37cbaab344011cfed8ecef15     
永久地,持久地
参考例句:
  • Why didn't he hold the Yankees instead of everlastingly retreating? 他为什么不将北军挡住,反而节节败退呢?
  • "I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. "我再也忍受不了这样无休止地的勉强自己,永远不能赁自己高兴做事。
49 pointed Il8zB4     
adj.尖的,直截了当的
参考例句:
  • He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
  • She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。
50 grudge hedzG     
n.不满,怨恨,妒嫉;vt.勉强给,不情愿做
参考例句:
  • I grudge paying so much for such inferior goods.我不愿花这么多钱买次品。
  • I do not grudge him his success.我不嫉妒他的成功。
51 chancellor aUAyA     
n.(英)大臣;法官;(德、奥)总理;大学校长
参考例句:
  • They submitted their reports to the Chancellor yesterday.他们昨天向财政大臣递交了报告。
  • He was regarded as the most successful Chancellor of modern times.他被认为是现代最成功的财政大臣。
52 exchequer VnxxT     
n.财政部;国库
参考例句:
  • In Britain the Chancellor of the Exchequer deals with taxes and government spending.英国的财政大臣负责税务和政府的开支。
  • This resulted in a considerable loss to the exchequer.这使国库遭受了重大损失。
53 bishops 391617e5d7bcaaf54a7c2ad3fc490348     
(基督教某些教派管辖大教区的)主教( bishop的名词复数 ); (国际象棋的)象
参考例句:
  • Each player has two bishops at the start of the game. 棋赛开始时,每名棋手有两只象。
  • "Only sheriffs and bishops and rich people and kings, and such like. “他劫富济贫,抢的都是郡长、主教、国王之类的富人。
54 plodded 9d4d6494cb299ac2ca6271f6a856a23b     
v.沉重缓慢地走(路)( plod的过去式和过去分词 );努力从事;沉闷地苦干;缓慢进行(尤指艰难枯燥的工作)
参考例句:
  • Our horses plodded down the muddy track. 我们的马沿着泥泞小路蹒跚而行。
  • He plodded away all night at his project to get it finished. 他通宵埋头苦干以便做完专题研究。 来自《简明英汉词典》
55 dreariness 464937dd8fc386c3c60823bdfabcc30c     
沉寂,可怕,凄凉
参考例句:
  • The park wore an aspect of utter dreariness and ruin. 园地上好久没人收拾,一片荒凉。
  • There in the melancholy, in the dreariness, Bertha found a bitter fascination. 在这里,在阴郁、倦怠之中,伯莎发现了一种刺痛人心的魅力。
56 attained 1f2c1bee274e81555decf78fe9b16b2f     
(通常经过努力)实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 ); 达到; 获得; 达到(某年龄、水平、状况)
参考例句:
  • She has attained the degree of Master of Arts. 她已获得文学硕士学位。
  • Lu Hsun attained a high position in the republic of letters. 鲁迅在文坛上获得崇高的地位。
57 entirely entirely     
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地
参考例句:
  • The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
  • His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。
58 growl VeHzE     
v.(狗等)嗥叫,(炮等)轰鸣;n.嗥叫,轰鸣
参考例句:
  • The dog was biting,growling and wagging its tail.那条狗在一边撕咬一边低声吼叫,尾巴也跟着摇摆。
  • The car growls along rutted streets.汽车在车辙纵横的街上一路轰鸣。
59 dressing 1uOzJG     
n.(食物)调料;包扎伤口的用品,敷料
参考例句:
  • Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
  • The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。
60 extremities AtOzAr     
n.端点( extremity的名词复数 );尽头;手和足;极窘迫的境地
参考例句:
  • She was most noticeable, I thought, in respect of her extremities. 我觉得她那副穷极可怜的样子实在太惹人注目。 来自辞典例句
  • Winters may be quite cool at the northwestern extremities. 西北边区的冬天也可能会相当凉。 来自辞典例句
61 joints d97dcffd67eca7255ca514e4084b746e     
接头( joint的名词复数 ); 关节; 公共场所(尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所) (非正式); 一块烤肉 (英式英语)
参考例句:
  • Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on gas mains. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在煤气的总管道上了。
  • Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on steam pipes. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在蒸气管道上了。
62 amiable hxAzZ     
adj.和蔼可亲的,友善的,亲切的
参考例句:
  • She was a very kind and amiable old woman.她是个善良和气的老太太。
  • We have a very amiable companionship.我们之间存在一种友好的关系。
63 caravan OrVzu     
n.大蓬车;活动房屋
参考例句:
  • The community adviser gave us a caravan to live in.社区顾问给了我们一间活动住房栖身。
  • Geoff connected the caravan to the car.杰弗把旅行用的住屋拖车挂在汽车上。
64 defective qnLzZ     
adj.有毛病的,有问题的,有瑕疵的
参考例句:
  • The firm had received bad publicity over a defective product. 该公司因为一件次品而受到媒体攻击。
  • If the goods prove defective, the customer has the right to compensation. 如果货品证明有缺陷, 顾客有权索赔。
65 extremity tlgxq     
n.末端,尽头;尽力;终极;极度
参考例句:
  • I hope you will help them in their extremity.我希望你能帮助在穷途末路的他们。
  • What shall we do in this extremity?在这种极其困难的情况下我们该怎么办呢?
66 hoarse 5dqzA     
adj.嘶哑的,沙哑的
参考例句:
  • He asked me a question in a hoarse voice.他用嘶哑的声音问了我一个问题。
  • He was too excited and roared himself hoarse.他过于激动,嗓子都喊哑了。
67 mere rC1xE     
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过
参考例句:
  • That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
  • It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。
68 civilian uqbzl     
adj.平民的,民用的,民众的
参考例句:
  • There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
  • He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。
69 dozing dozing     
v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡
参考例句:
  • The economy shows no signs of faltering. 经济没有衰退的迹象。
  • He never falters in his determination. 他的决心从不动摇。
70 kindly tpUzhQ     
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地
参考例句:
  • Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
  • A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。
71 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
72 confidential MOKzA     
adj.秘(机)密的,表示信任的,担任机密工作的
参考例句:
  • He refused to allow his secretary to handle confidential letters.他不让秘书处理机密文件。
  • We have a confidential exchange of views.我们推心置腹地交换意见。
73 ferocious ZkNxc     
adj.凶猛的,残暴的,极度的,十分强烈的
参考例句:
  • The ferocious winds seemed about to tear the ship to pieces.狂风仿佛要把船撕成碎片似的。
  • The ferocious panther is chasing a rabbit.那只凶猛的豹子正追赶一只兔子。
74 braces ca4b7fc327bd02465aeaf6e4ce63bfcd     
n.吊带,背带;托架( brace的名词复数 );箍子;括弧;(儿童)牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 );撑牢;使自己站稳;振作起来
参考例句:
  • The table is shaky because the braces are loose. 这张桌子摇摇晃晃,因为支架全松了。
  • You don't need braces if you're wearing a belt! 要系腰带,就用不着吊带了。
75 thereby Sokwv     
adv.因此,从而
参考例句:
  • I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市,因此对它不怎么熟悉。
  • He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民,因而得到了投票权。
76 milestone c78zM     
n.里程碑;划时代的事件
参考例句:
  • The film proved to be a milestone in the history of cinema.事实证明这部影片是电影史上的一个里程碑。
  • I think this is a very important milestone in the relations between our two countries.我认为这是我们两国关系中一个十分重要的里程碑。
77 abode hIby0     
n.住处,住所
参考例句:
  • It was ten months before my father discovered his abode.父亲花了十个月的功夫,才好不容易打听到他的住处。
  • Welcome to our humble abode!欢迎光临寒舍!
78 royalty iX6xN     
n.皇家,皇族
参考例句:
  • She claims to be descended from royalty.她声称她是皇室后裔。
  • I waited on tables,and even catered to royalty at the Royal Albert Hall.我做过服务生, 甚至在皇家阿伯特大厅侍奉过皇室的人。
79 inscription l4ZyO     
n.(尤指石块上的)刻印文字,铭文,碑文
参考例句:
  • The inscription has worn away and can no longer be read.铭文已磨损,无法辨认了。
  • He chiselled an inscription on the marble.他在大理石上刻碑文。
80 touching sg6zQ9     
adj.动人的,使人感伤的
参考例句:
  • It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
  • His letter was touching.他的信很感人。
81 melancholy t7rz8     
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的
参考例句:
  • All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
  • He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过,他感到很郁闷。
82 ragged KC0y8     
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的
参考例句:
  • A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
  • Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。
83 bate uQxyy     
v.压制;减弱;n.(制革用的)软化剂
参考例句:
  • The cruel landlord would bate him no rent.那个狠心的地主不肯给他减租。
  • I was unable to bate my enthusiasm.我无法抑制自己的热切的心情。
84 fully Gfuzd     
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地
参考例句:
  • The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气,然后全部呼出。
  • They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。
85 sprightly 4GQzv     
adj.愉快的,活泼的
参考例句:
  • She is as sprightly as a woman half her age.她跟比她年轻一半的妇女一样活泼。
  • He's surprisingly sprightly for an old man.他这把年纪了,还这么精神,真了不起。
86 deprivations 95fd57fd5dcdaf94e0064a694c70b904     
剥夺( deprivation的名词复数 ); 被夺去; 缺乏; 匮乏
参考例句:
  • At this, some of the others chime in with memories of prewar deprivations. 听到这话,另外那些人中有几个开始加进来讲述他们对战前贫困生活的回忆。 来自柯林斯例句
87 pacified eba3332d17ba74e9c360cbf02b8c9729     
使(某人)安静( pacify的过去式和过去分词 ); 息怒; 抚慰; 在(有战争的地区、国家等)实现和平
参考例句:
  • The baby could not be pacified. 怎么也止不住婴儿的哭声。
  • She shrieked again, refusing to be pacified. 她又尖叫了,无法使她平静下来。
88 swelling OUzzd     
n.肿胀
参考例句:
  • Use ice to reduce the swelling. 用冰敷消肿。
  • There is a marked swelling of the lymph nodes. 淋巴结处有明显的肿块。
89 contriving 104341ff394294c813643a9fe96a99cb     
(不顾困难地)促成某事( contrive的现在分词 ); 巧妙地策划,精巧地制造(如机器); 设法做到
参考例句:
  • Why may not several Deities combine in contriving and framing a world? 为什么不可能是数个神联合起来,设计和构造世界呢? 来自哲学部分
  • The notorious drug-pusher has been contriving an escape from the prison. 臭名昭著的大毒枭一直都在图谋越狱。
90 inspection y6TxG     
n.检查,审查,检阅
参考例句:
  • On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查,发现肉变质了。
  • The soldiers lined up for their daily inspection by their officers.士兵们列队接受军官的日常检阅。
91 berth yt0zq     
n.卧铺,停泊地,锚位;v.使停泊
参考例句:
  • She booked a berth on the train from London to Aberdeen.她订了一张由伦敦开往阿伯丁的火车卧铺票。
  • They took up a berth near the harbor.他们在港口附近找了个位置下锚。
92 neatly ynZzBp     
adv.整洁地,干净地,灵巧地,熟练地
参考例句:
  • Sailors know how to wind up a long rope neatly.水手们知道怎样把一条大绳利落地缠好。
  • The child's dress is neatly gathered at the neck.那孩子的衣服在领口处打着整齐的皱褶。
93 jealousy WaRz6     
n.妒忌,嫉妒,猜忌
参考例句:
  • Some women have a disposition to jealousy.有些女人生性爱妒忌。
  • I can't support your jealousy any longer.我再也无法忍受你的嫉妒了。
94 specimen Xvtwm     
n.样本,标本
参考例句:
  • You'll need tweezers to hold up the specimen.你要用镊子来夹这标本。
  • This specimen is richly variegated in colour.这件标本上有很多颜色。
95 spicy zhvzrC     
adj.加香料的;辛辣的,有风味的
参考例句:
  • The soup tasted mildly spicy.汤尝起来略有点辣。
  • Very spicy food doesn't suit her stomach.太辣的东西她吃了胃不舒服。
96 prescriptions f0b231c0bb45f8e500f32e91ec1ae602     
药( prescription的名词复数 ); 处方; 开处方; 计划
参考例句:
  • The hospital of traditional Chinese medicine installed a computer to fill prescriptions. 中医医院装上了电子计算机来抓药。
  • Her main job was filling the doctor's prescriptions. 她的主要工作就是给大夫开的药方配药。
97 prescription u1vzA     
n.处方,开药;指示,规定
参考例句:
  • The physician made a prescription against sea- sickness for him.医生给他开了个治晕船的药方。
  • The drug is available on prescription only.这种药只能凭处方购买。
98 delightful 6xzxT     
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的
参考例句:
  • We had a delightful time by the seashore last Sunday.上星期天我们在海滨玩得真痛快。
  • Peter played a delightful melody on his flute.彼得用笛子吹奏了一支欢快的曲子。
99 astonishment VvjzR     
n.惊奇,惊异
参考例句:
  • They heard him give a loud shout of astonishment.他们听见他惊奇地大叫一声。
  • I was filled with astonishment at her strange action.我对她的奇怪举动不胜惊异。
100 attentive pOKyB     
adj.注意的,专心的;关心(别人)的,殷勤的
参考例句:
  • She was very attentive to her guests.她对客人招待得十分周到。
  • The speaker likes to have an attentive audience.演讲者喜欢注意力集中的听众。
101 bosom Lt9zW     
n.胸,胸部;胸怀;内心;adj.亲密的
参考例句:
  • She drew a little book from her bosom.她从怀里取出一本小册子。
  • A dark jealousy stirred in his bosom.他内心生出一阵恶毒的嫉妒。
102 blotting 82f88882eee24a4d34af56be69fee506     
吸墨水纸
参考例句:
  • Water will permeate blotting paper. 水能渗透吸水纸。
  • One dab with blotting-paper and the ink was dry. 用吸墨纸轻轻按了一下,墨水就乾了。
103 buckling buckling     
扣住
参考例句:
  • A door slammed in the house and a man came out buckling his belt. 房子里的一扇门砰地关上,一个男子边扣腰带边走了出来。
  • The periodic buckling leaves the fibre in a waved conformation. 周期性的弯折在纤维中造成波形构成。
104 brass DWbzI     
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器
参考例句:
  • Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
  • Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。
105 hearty Od1zn     
adj.热情友好的;衷心的;尽情的,纵情的
参考例句:
  • After work they made a hearty meal in the worker's canteen.工作完了,他们在工人食堂饱餐了一顿。
  • We accorded him a hearty welcome.我们给他热忱的欢迎。
106 expressive shwz4     
adj.表现的,表达…的,富于表情的
参考例句:
  • Black English can be more expressive than standard English.黑人所使用的英语可能比正式英语更有表现力。
  • He had a mobile,expressive,animated face.他有一张多变的,富于表情的,生动活泼的脸。
107 misery G10yi     
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦
参考例句:
  • Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
  • He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。
108 degradation QxKxL     
n.降级;低落;退化;陵削;降解;衰变
参考例句:
  • There are serious problems of land degradation in some arid zones.在一些干旱地带存在严重的土地退化问题。
  • Gambling is always coupled with degradation.赌博总是与堕落相联系。
109 converse 7ZwyI     
vi.谈话,谈天,闲聊;adv.相反的,相反
参考例句:
  • He can converse in three languages.他可以用3种语言谈话。
  • I wanted to appear friendly and approachable but I think I gave the converse impression.我想显得友好、平易近人些,却发觉给人的印象恰恰相反。
110 graceful deHza     
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的
参考例句:
  • His movements on the parallel bars were very graceful.他的双杠动作可帅了!
  • The ballet dancer is so graceful.芭蕾舞演员的姿态是如此的优美。
111 sketches 8d492ee1b1a5d72e6468fd0914f4a701     
n.草图( sketch的名词复数 );素描;速写;梗概
参考例句:
  • The artist is making sketches for his next painting. 画家正为他的下一幅作品画素描。
  • You have to admit that these sketches are true to life. 你得承认这些素描很逼真。 来自《简明英汉词典》
112 linen W3LyK     
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的
参考例句:
  • The worker is starching the linen.这名工人正在给亚麻布上浆。
  • Fine linen and cotton fabrics were known as well as wool.精细的亚麻织品和棉织品像羊毛一样闻名遐迩。
113 exquisitely Btwz1r     
adv.精致地;强烈地;剧烈地;异常地
参考例句:
  • He found her exquisitely beautiful. 他觉得她异常美丽。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He wore an exquisitely tailored gray silk and accessories to match. 他穿的是做工非常考究的灰色绸缎衣服,还有各种配得很协调的装饰。 来自教父部分
114 muzzle i11yN     
n.鼻口部;口套;枪(炮)口;vt.使缄默
参考例句:
  • He placed the muzzle of the pistol between his teeth.他把手枪的枪口放在牙齿中间。
  • The President wanted to muzzle the press.总统企图遏制新闻自由。
115 machinery CAdxb     
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构
参考例句:
  • Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗?
  • Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。
116 nought gHGx3     
n./adj.无,零
参考例句:
  • We must bring their schemes to nought.我们必须使他们的阴谋彻底破产。
  • One minus one leaves nought.一减一等于零。
117 immortal 7kOyr     
adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的
参考例句:
  • The wild cocoa tree is effectively immortal.野生可可树实际上是不会死的。
  • The heroes of the people are immortal!人民英雄永垂不朽!
118 alcove EKMyU     
n.凹室
参考例句:
  • The bookcase fits neatly into the alcove.书架正好放得进壁凹。
  • In the alcoves on either side of the fire were bookshelves.火炉两边的凹室里是书架。
119 auction 3uVzy     
n.拍卖;拍卖会;vt.拍卖
参考例句:
  • They've put the contents of their house up for auction.他们把房子里的东西全都拿去拍卖了。
  • They bought a new minibus with the proceeds from the auction.他们用拍卖得来的钱买了一辆新面包车。
120 eloquence 6mVyM     
n.雄辩;口才,修辞
参考例句:
  • I am afraid my eloquence did not avail against the facts.恐怕我的雄辩也无补于事实了。
  • The people were charmed by his eloquence.人们被他的口才迷住了。
121 tract iJxz4     
n.传单,小册子,大片(土地或森林)
参考例句:
  • He owns a large tract of forest.他拥有一大片森林。
  • He wrote a tract on this subject.他曾对此写了一篇短文。
122 growling growling     
n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼
参考例句:
  • We heard thunder growling in the distance. 我们听见远处有隆隆雷声。
  • The lay about the deck growling together in talk. 他们在甲板上到处游荡,聚集在一起发牢骚。
123 syllable QHezJ     
n.音节;vt.分音节
参考例句:
  • You put too much emphasis on the last syllable.你把最后一个音节读得太重。
  • The stress on the last syllable is light.最后一个音节是轻音节。
124 pathos dLkx2     
n.哀婉,悲怆
参考例句:
  • The pathos of the situation brought tears to our eyes.情况令人怜悯,看得我们不禁流泪。
  • There is abundant pathos in her words.她的话里富有动人哀怜的力量。
125 manly fBexr     
adj.有男子气概的;adv.男子般地,果断地
参考例句:
  • The boy walked with a confident manly stride.这男孩以自信的男人步伐行走。
  • He set himself manly tasks and expected others to follow his example.他给自己定下了男子汉的任务,并希望别人效之。
126 legacy 59YzD     
n.遗产,遗赠;先人(或过去)留下的东西
参考例句:
  • They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
  • He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。
127 stamina br8yJ     
n.体力;精力;耐力
参考例句:
  • I lacked the stamina to run the whole length of the race.我没有跑完全程的耐力。
  • Giving up smoking had a magical effect on his stamina.戒烟神奇地增强了他的体力。
128 acting czRzoc     
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的
参考例句:
  • Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她,她只是假装的。
  • During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代,她的表演生涯黯然失色。
129 allotted 5653ecda52c7b978bd6890054bd1f75f     
分配,拨给,摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • I completed the test within the time allotted . 我在限定的时间内完成了试验。
  • Each passenger slept on the berth allotted to him. 每个旅客都睡在分配给他的铺位上。
130 unreasonable tjLwm     
adj.不讲道理的,不合情理的,过度的
参考例句:
  • I know that they made the most unreasonable demands on you.我知道他们对你提出了最不合理的要求。
  • They spend an unreasonable amount of money on clothes.他们花在衣服上的钱太多了。
131 thoroughly sgmz0J     
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地
参考例句:
  • The soil must be thoroughly turned over before planting.一定要先把土地深翻一遍再下种。
  • The soldiers have been thoroughly instructed in the care of their weapons.士兵们都系统地接受过保护武器的训练。
132 fowls 4f8db97816f2d0cad386a79bb5c17ea4     
鸟( fowl的名词复数 ); 禽肉; 既不是这; 非驴非马
参考例句:
  • A great number of water fowls dwell on the island. 许多水鸟在岛上栖息。
  • We keep a few fowls and some goats. 我们养了几只鸡和一些山羊。
133 plodding 5lMz16     
a.proceeding in a slow or dull way
参考例句:
  • They're still plodding along with their investigation. 他们仍然在不厌其烦地进行调查。
  • He is plodding on with negotiations. 他正缓慢艰难地进行着谈判。
134 oysters 713202a391facaf27aab568d95bdc68f     
牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • We don't have oysters tonight, but the crayfish are very good. 我们今晚没有牡蛎供应。但小龙虾是非常好。
  • She carried a piping hot grill of oysters and bacon. 她端出一盘滚烫的烤牡蛎和咸肉。
135 relished c700682884b4734d455673bc9e66a90c     
v.欣赏( relish的过去式和过去分词 );从…获得乐趣;渴望
参考例句:
  • The chaplain relished the privacy and isolation of his verdant surroundings. 牧师十分欣赏他那苍翠的环境所具有的幽雅恬静,与世隔绝的气氛。 来自辞典例句
  • Dalleson relished the first portion of the work before him. 达尔生对眼前这工作的前半部分满有兴趣。 来自辞典例句
136 comely GWeyX     
adj.漂亮的,合宜的
参考例句:
  • His wife is a comely young woman.他的妻子是一个美丽的少妇。
  • A nervous,comely-dressed little girl stepped out.一个紧张不安、衣着漂亮的小姑娘站了出来。
137 mite 4Epxw     
n.极小的东西;小铜币
参考例句:
  • The poor mite was so ill.可怜的孩子病得这么重。
  • He is a mite taller than I.他比我高一点点。


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